Just about the time I was wondering what Rafe and I were going to do for dinner, my phone dinged with a text message from one person to three others.

Aunt Frances: Do you two have plans to cook tonight?

Minnie (after laughing out loud hard enough to startle a passing patron): Nope. You?

Aunt Frances: I want to try a new coleslaw recipe and I bought too many mixed greens at the farmers’ market.

Otto: And I want to try a new grilled chicken rub.

Minnie: Glad to be your guinea pigs. What time?

Rafe: Don’t I get a vote?

Minnie: Nope.

Aunt Frances: No.

Otto: I can’t believe you asked that question.

And so it was that, at six thirty on the dot, Rafe and I were scheduled to meet on the sidewalk outside of the house where my aunt now lived. Across the street was the rambling old boardinghouse, where she’d lived for decade upon decade. It was there that I’d been sent to spend my youthful summers with my dad’s sister, and it was there that I’d returned when I’d landed my job with the Chilson District Library.

For years I’d lived with my loving aunt through the cold northern months. May through September, though, I cheerfully abandoned her in favor of the houseboat while she took in summer boarders who paid far more a month than I could afford on a librarian’s salary.

But a few short months ago, Aunt Frances and Otto got married. And my aunt, who also taught woodworking classes at the local community college during the school year, sold the boardinghouse to our cousin Celeste.

“Minnie!”

I’d been about to walk up the steps to my aunt’s house, but that clear, high voice stopped me in my tracks. “Celeste, how are you doing?”

Cousin-wise, Celeste was in the second-cousin-twice-removed kind of category. The exact relationship had been explained to me more than once, but that kind of thing didn’t seem to stick in my head. What mattered to me was that Celeste, in her mid-fifties, with long gray hair most often braided, or rolled up into a bun, or both, was cheerful and was running the boardinghouse almost exactly as my aunt had.

The fact that she was only a teensy bit taller than my own efficient five feet wasn’t a Thing, not really, but it was nice to have a relative who fully understood what it meant to have to ask for help to get items from the top shelves of grocery stores.

“I never knew house cleaning could be so much fun!” She tossed a brightly colored throw rug over the porch railing and started thumping with a broom. “Take that, dust!” she shouted, grinning.

Grinning myself, I asked, “What are you going to do this winter, have you decided?”